A number of pages on the NBC.com website were defaced Sunday with a reference to Guy Fawkes Day and a claim that user names and passwords for the site had been compromised. The defacement appears to be the work of one hacker who exploited a security flaw in the community software used to manage user's accounts.

The defacement included part of a traditional Guy Fawkes Day poem ("Remember, remember, the fifth of November / The Gunpowder Treason and plot"). It affected NBC's homepage, its video homepage, and the site for Saturday Night Live among others. As of 3:00pm EST today, the site had been restored—though some pages were re-defaced as NBC attempted to repair the damage over the course of the day. (With all the issues, NBC has disabled user logins.) The defacement also included a claim user accounts and passwords had been compromised ("User info exposed, passwords dumped").

The attack appears to have exploited a vulnerability in community forum software used by NBC. The same hacker or hackers call themselves Pyknic. They used the same defacement on Gaga Daily, a Lady Gaga fan site, and used cross-site scripts pulled from a Norwegian fisheries and marine biology website's discussion board server. NBC, the Gaga site, and the Norwegian site all use software from Invision Power Services to power discussions on their sites. Invision posted a critical security update to their online community software on October 25. Invision and NBC were unavailable for comment.

Enlarge/ The NBC.com videos page defacement, as it appeared at noon EST on November 4.

I'm not sure that Guy Fawkes is a particularly inspirational character. He, and his fellow plotters reward for failing to blow up Westminster Palace was hanging and disembowelment in the public square after all.

I'm not sure that Guy Fawkes is a particularly inspirational character. He, and his fellow plotters reward for failing to blow up Westminster Palace was hanging and disembowelment in the public square after all.

More - he planned mass murder in the name of religion, as a prelude to the overthrow of the monarchy and parliament in favour of his preferred version of Christianity.

But I feel you credit these hackers with too much intelligence. They just use Fawkes as an excuse because they don't know anything more about him than the mask that Anonymous uses (and maybe that V for Vendetta film).

I'm not sure that Guy Fawkes is a particularly inspirational character. He, and his fellow plotters reward for failing to blow up Westminster Palace was hanging and disembowelment in the public square after all.

Well as they say (in the movie):

"We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the world. I've seen people kill in the name of them; and die defending them. But you cannot kill an idea, cannot touch it or hold it. Ideas do not bleed [and] cannot feel pain."

Edit: didn't know that this guy was such a questionable character. Although much of it might just be propaganda released at that time. Since we don't have many sources other than the ones that were approved by the King, it might still influence how we/historians view him today.

I'm not sure that Guy Fawkes is a particularly inspirational character. He, and his fellow plotters reward for failing to blow up Westminster Palace was hanging and disembowelment in the public square after all.

More - he planned mass murder in the name of religion, as a prelude to the overthrow of the monarchy and parliament in favour of his preferred version of Christianity.

Indeed. The locals still burn effigies of the Pope in the Sussex town of Lewes on Bonfire Night as a consequence.

Edit: didn't know that this guy was such a questionable character. Although much of it might just be propaganda released at that time. Since we don't have many sources other than the ones that were approved by the King, it might still influence how we/historians view him today.

The AITP DC chapter website was recently defaced by the 3xp1r3 Cyber Army. I still have no idea what a non-profit professional organisation for IT people to network has to do with "mass killings" in Bangladesh.

I don't get these hackers. If you want to make a political point, then protest like everyone else. Form a legitimate organization. Do something constructive. Defacing random websites is not going to help you, it will only turn you into a despised criminal.

The AITP DC chapter website was recently defaced by the 3xp1r3 Cyber Army. I still have no idea what a non-profit professional organisation for IT people to network has to do with "mass killings" in Bangladesh.

I don't get these hackers. If you want to make a political point, then protest like everyone else. Form a legitimate organization. Do something constructive. Defacing random websites is not going to help you, it will only turn you into a despised criminal.

I'm not sure that Guy Fawkes is a particularly inspirational character. He, and his fellow plotters reward for failing to blow up Westminster Palace was hanging and disembowelment in the public square after all.

More - he planned mass murder in the name of religion, as a prelude to the overthrow of the monarchy and parliament in favour of his preferred version of Christianity.

But I feel you credit these hackers with too much intelligence. They just use Fawkes as an excuse because they don't know anything more about him than the mask that Anonymous uses (and maybe that V for Vendetta film).

The reason why Anonymous wears his mask is because they believe that he was killed because he wanted to revolt against the version of Christianity practiced by the English monarchy, a so-called change of status quo (or treason as some called it). What Anonymous forgets is that he and his fellow revolutionists were equally hanged because they could have killed people in the plot.

But in this world, some people will believe what they want to believe. Just ask those people who warp the Bible to fit their "I'm better than you and I couldn't care less about you" attitude or that crazy church in Topeka, Kansas.

I'm not sure that Guy Fawkes is a particularly inspirational character. He, and his fellow plotters reward for failing to blow up Westminster Palace was hanging and disembowelment in the public square after all.

Well as they say (in the movie):

"We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught. He can be killed and forgotten. But four hundred years later an idea can still change the world. I've seen people kill in the name of them; and die defending them. But you cannot kill an idea, cannot touch it or hold it. Ideas do not bleed [and] cannot feel pain."

Edit: didn't know that this guy was such a questionable character. Although much of it might just be propaganda released at that time. Since we don't have many sources other than the ones that were approved by the King, it might still influence how we/historians view him today.

"We are told to remember the idea, not the man,"

The "idea" was to blow up the Parliament because Catholicism was being replaced by Protestantism. It really had absolutely nothing to do with anything that "Anonymous" talks about. Cartoon authors are not political scientists

Anarchist groups do not have coherent ideas. They just have anger and they don't see any way to have a positive impact so they get caught up in being destructive towards what made them angry.

I think we all have a responsibility towards these kids who end up in jail because we let them become disenfranchised with our society and system of civilization. A kid grows up hearing about and believing in democracy and then all of a sudden the President is legitimizes torture and war crimes. What did we think would happen?

When we let our politicans stop following the pillars of democracy the roof starts to come down.

It was actually an annonymous letter sent to the authorities that revealed Guy Fawkes' plot and led to his capture and execution...lol?

Quote:

The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on 26 October 1605. During a search of the House of Lords at about midnight on 4 November 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder—enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble—and arrested

Edit: didn't know that this guy was such a questionable character. Although much of it might just be propaganda released at that time. Since we don't have many sources other than the ones that were approved by the King, it might still influence how we/historians view him today.

To be fair, historians do tend to know to account for this, and there are historians that actually specifically focus on propaganda in history as their specialty.

From what I recall, a lot of the information about Fawkes comes from his interrogation and his personal effects. While propaganda is entirely likely to skew the former, in a society with very low transparency forging the latter is much more unlikely.

Now, I'm not saying "you're wrong", there's actually a lot to be said about propaganda... actually you could probably do a doctoral thesis on the subject in history or political science. But, I think a lot of the current perspective, is unrelated to propaganda.

If there is residual elements of it's influence, it's probably in his almost "folk hero" status. "The only man ever to go to parliament with honourable intentions" and all that.

Seems history is being rather over-simplified here, to its detriment. Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot was not merely trying to get his version of Christianity reinstated over the King's, it was a reaction to the active persecution of Catholics in Britain due the policies of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I as part of England's schism with Rome over the topic of Henry's divorce (c.f. St. Thomas More, Mary Queen of Scots, etc.). Further, the "mass murder" was targeted at King James and his Parliament—throwing around the term loosely makes it sound as though they intended to round up and exterminate all English Protestants, which was never the case at all.

Anarchist groups do not have coherent ideas. They just have anger and they don't see any way to have a positive impact so they get caught up in being destructive towards what made them angry.

I think we all have a responsibility towards these kids who end up in jail because we let them become disenfranchised with our society and system of civilization. A kid grows up hearing about and believing in democracy and then all of a sudden the President is legitimizes torture and war crimes. What did we think would happen?

When we let our politicans stop following the pillars of democracy the roof starts to come down.

Not every anarchist group is destructive and hateful. I used to think that, but since the economic downturn, I've met a lot of groups that genuinely want to improve the way things are done. Not through destruction, or protest, but by creating systems based on consensus. Consensus is a process that encourages people to collaborate to reach a decision that is acceptable to everyone, rather than have people choose between options. It currently works best in small groups, but new tools, including internet tools might be able to scale these techniques.

Anarchism doesn't have to be a threat to existing society, but can improve it. That's not to excuse the behavior of people who are destructive. Although, defacing a webpage is relatively harmless, and may be able to communicate to people that other ways are possible, and media companies don't have quite the control they seem to(lulz aside). People who want to make a lasting change in media should build tools to help anyone be able to create and distribute music. This would make music in our culture into a creative process for more people instead of a consumption activity. More people could enjoy creating music and loosen the negative influences of entrenched media companies and their model of consuming superstars' music. Youtube and Soundcloud have done more to lessen big media's stranglehold on creativity than file-sharing has.

If you really don't like what someone is doing, don't trash what they've made, replace it with a better version. People will switch to the better one, and the system being replaced will have to innovate rather than block competition.

I don't get these hackers. If you want to make a political point, then protest like everyone else. Form a legitimate organization. Do something constructive. Defacing random websites is not going to help you, it will only turn you into a despised criminal.

I guarantee that if these hackers had formed a peaceful protest, Ars Technica would not have reported on it. Neither would the New York Times, Washington Post, or anyone else. Trouble is a form of attention.

(also: they have no political motive, they're just vandals. Hence, attention)

Anarchist groups do not have coherent ideas. They just have anger and they don't see any way to have a positive impact so they get caught up in being destructive towards what made them angry.

I think we all have a responsibility towards these kids who end up in jail because we let them become disenfranchised with our society and system of civilization. A kid grows up hearing about and believing in democracy and then all of a sudden the President is legitimizes torture and war crimes. What did we think would happen?

When we let our politicans stop following the pillars of democracy the roof starts to come down.

Not every anarchist group is destructive and hateful. I used to think that, but since the economic downturn, I've met a lot of groups that genuinely want to improve the way things are done. Not through destruction, or protest, but by creating systems based on consensus. Consensus is a process that encourages people to collaborate to reach a decision that is acceptable to everyone, rather than have people choose between options. It currently works best in small groups, but new tools, including internet tools might be able to scale these techniques.

Anarchism doesn't have to be a threat to existing society, but can improve it. That's not to excuse the behavior of people who are destructive. Although, defacing a webpage is relatively harmless, and may be able to communicate to people that other ways are possible, and media companies don't have quite the control they seem to(lulz aside). People who want to make a lasting change in media should build tools to help anyone be able to create and distribute music. This would make music in our culture into a creative process for more people instead of a consumption activity. More people could enjoy creating music and loosen the negative influences of entrenched media companies and their model of consuming superstars' music. Youtube and Soundcloud have done more to lessen big media's stranglehold on creativity than file-sharing has.

If you really don't like what someone is doing, don't trash what they've made, replace it with a better version. People will switch to the better one, and the system being replaced will have to innovate rather than block competition.

Consensus can lead to the forming of cliques, cults of personality, stagnation, and the ostracism of dissenters.

Not every anarchist group is destructive and hateful. I used to think that, but since the economic downturn, I've met a lot of groups that genuinely want to improve the way things are done. Not through destruction, or protest, but by creating systems based on consensus.

They're not an anarchist group if they believe in "creating systems". Anarchy, by definition, is the absence of systems.

People who believe in consensus are also not anarchists. Anarchists believe that because the media is controlled by the bourgeoisie that the general public is not capable of making decisions that are in their own good and they must be forced to see the truth. That is how they justify bombings, killing, vandalism, etc...

The children today who call themselves anarchists don't know what the word means. They just see a cool looking video on YouTube and want to play dress up. Their statements and "propaganda" show a real lack of understanding of economics and political science. I bet there is not even one "anti-globalization activist" who can explain what globalization means.

But like I said before we're all to blame because we have all disrespected democracy. We let our leaders legitimize torture, unconstitutional "wiretapping", don't follow the Geneva conventions as they relate to PoWs, we send drone death squads with no thought to collateral damage, used chemical weapons in Fallujah, etc...

I don't know, it is a difficult problem. It's a problem that plagues many other decision making techniques as well. If your group is being run by selfish people, you branch off, and take the good people with you.

G1itch wrote:

They're not an anarchist group if they believe in "creating systems". Anarchy, by definition, is the absence of systems.

People who believe in consensus are also not anarchists. Anarchists believe that because the media is controlled by the bourgeoisie that the general public is not capable of making decisions that are in their own good and they must be forced to see the truth. That is how they justify bombings, killing, vandalism, etc...

The children today who call themselves anarchists don't know what the word means. They just see a cool looking video on YouTube and want to play dress up. Their statements and "propaganda" show a real lack of understanding of economics and political science. I bet there is not even one "anti-globalization activist" who can explain what globalization means.

Thanks for your input. The people who use consensus and call themselves anarchists believe that anarchy means they are "without leaders" not without systems and tools. I suppose a better term might be "consensus democracy"

My point with all of this is that those who are disenfranchised with something should improve and replace it, not destroy it.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.